Covenanted Bedtime Stories

Consider: A lawfully wedded wife leaves her lawfully wedded husband and goes a-whoring for several years while the husband patiently awaits her return. She returns, without repenting of her whoring, and agrees to live with her husband, but not because she is bound by her past covenant to do so, but simply because she wants to (which she thinks is reason enough). She wishes to be considered a faithful and honorable wife.

Consider also: A man lives a life of debauchery, idolatry, murder, and theft. He discontinues doing those things, never confessing or expressing sorrow for those things, but simply pretending as if those things never happened. He wishes to be considered a faithful and honorable man.

And again, consider: A family is building a house for their father on their own property. A trespasser burns the house down, and kills some members of the family. The wicked trespasser then says that he’s changed his mind, and he’s decided that the family is allowed to build the house, provided they admit that he is the rightful owner of the house. Some of the family members think this is a fantastic deal, and a great opportunity to get the house of their father built. Other family members think it’s a bad idea to build the house under those conditions, as it acknowledges that the wicked man has the right to make such demands of ownership on this house, reminding the family that the house they seek to build belongs to their father, not to the trespasser. The latter family members abstain from participating in the building of the trespasser's new house, and instead seek to build themselves a house for their father which the trespasser has no claim to. The former family members are highly offended that the latter family members are refusing to participate with them, considering them to be disobedient, disruptive, and divisive, all the while wishing for themselves to be considered faithful and honorable sons of their father.

Crazy, huh?